Year of the Unicorn

4 Unicorn Morn

“Know you what night this is?” She who tossed back her veil and loosed her hood so that fair hair strayed limply from beneath its edge was Aldeeth who had lain to my left the night before. From the southlands she had come, and her blazon of salamander curled among leaping flames was one I did not know.

Kildas made answer. “If you mean we stand at year’s end, to greet a new one with the dawn—”

“Just so. We pass now into the Year of the Unicorn.”

“Which some might take as a good omen, “ Kildas. responded, “since the unicorn is the guardian of maidens and the banner of the innocent.”

“Tonight—” Solfinna’s voice was very low, “we would gather in the great hall, with ivy and holly on the board so each might have a sprig for wearing—holly for the men, green ivy for us. And we would drink the year’s cup together and feed the Strawman and the Frax woman to the flames, burning them with scented grasses, so that the crops would be fair and plentiful and luck would take its abode under our high roof tree—”

I had memories of the household meeting she put tongue to—a simple one, but carrying meaning for those who lived upon the fruits of the soil. Each silent and dark farmstead we had passed would be doing likewise this night, as would they with more revelry in a great hall. Only at the Abbey there would be no feasting nor burning of symbols, as the Dames allowed no such pagan ceremonies within their austere walls.

“I wonder whether our lords-and-masters-to-be welcome in the year’s beginning in some such manner.” Kildas broke the silence of our memories. “They worship not the Flames, since. Those by their very nature are alien to the Riders’ world. To what gods do they bow? Or have they any gods at all?”

Solfinna gave a little gasp. “No gods! How may a man live without gods, a power greater than himself to trust upon?”

Aldeeth laughed scornfully. “Who says that they are men? They are not to be judged as we judge. Have you not yet bit full upon that truth, girl? It is time to throw away your cup of memory, since you and we were born under ill-fated stars which have determined we pass so out of one world into another, even as we pass from the old year into the new.”

“Why do you deem that that which is unknown must likewise be ill?” I asked. “To look diligently for shadows is to find them. Throwing aside all rumour and story, what evil do we know of the Riders?”

They spoke then, several together, and Kildas, listening to that jumble of speech, laughed.

“ ‘They say’—‘they say’—this and that they say! Now give full name and rank to they I’ll warrant that this, our sister-comrade has the right of it. What do we know save rumour and ill-wishing? Never have the Were Riders lifted sword or let fly arrow against us—only have they ravaged the enemy in our behalf, after making covenant and bargain with our kin. Because a man grows black hair upon his head, wears a grey cloak, likes to live in a land of his own choosing, is he any different in blood, bone and spirit from he who had fair locks beneath his helm, goes with scarlet about his shoulders, and would ride in company along a port town street? Both have their part to play in the land. What evil of your own knowing has ever been from Rider hand?”

“But they are not men!” Aldeeth wished to make the worst of it.

“How know we that, either? They have powers which are not ours, but do all of us have talents alike? One may set ’broidery on silk so as to make one wish to pluck the stitched flowers and listen to the singing of the birds she has wrought. Another may draw her fingers across lute strings and voice such a song as to set us all a-dreaming. Do we each and every one of us do these things in a like measure? Therefore men may have gifts beyond our knowing and yet be men, apart from those talents.”

Whether she believed what she spoke or not, yet she was doing valiant service here against the fear which sucked at us all.

“Lady Aldeeth,” I broke in, “you wear upon your tabard a salamander easy among flames. Have you seen such a creature? Or does it not have a different meaning for you and your house—and its friends and enemies—than a lizard encouched on a fiery bed?”

“It means we may be menaced but not consumed.” she replied as if by rote.

“And I see a basilisk here, a phoenix, a wyvern—do these exist in truth, or do they stand for ideas which each of your houses have made their guiding spirits? If this is true, then perhaps those we go to, have also symbols which may be misunderstood by those who are not lettered in their form of heraldry.” So did I play Hildas’ game, if game it was.

But still the green light glowed unchanged in the pass and Lord Imgry and his companions did not return. While waiting always frays the nerves of those who have only time to think.

We were sitting on stones, still huddled around the fire, when he who was Imgry’s lieutenant returned with the message that we were to move on, into the Throat. And while I can not answer for the others, I believed that each of them shared what I was feeling, an excitement which was more than half fear.

But we rode not into any camp of men prepared to do us welcome. Rather did we find at the end of the pass a wide ledge and on that set shelter-tents of hide. Within were couches covered with the skins of beasts, and some so carpeted also. There was a long, low table in the largest tent and it was spread with food.

I stroked a fine silver-white fur, beautiful enough to form a mantle for the lady of a great lord. It was dappled with a deeper grey and so well cured that it was as soft in my hands as a silken shift. Though all about us was leather red or fur, still there was a magnificence which spoke of honour offered and comfort promised.

Lord Imgry stood at the foot of the table as we finished those viands left for us, a bread with dried fruit baked therein, smoked meat of rich flavour, sweets which had the taste of wild honey and nutmeats. He had a shadow about him, I suddenly thought, as if between him and our company was forming a barrier—that indeed we were already forsaking our kind. But there was this time no fear in that thought, only again did I feel that prick of eagerness to be away—to be doing—where and what? I could not name either.

“Listen well.” his voice was unduly harsh, sending us all into silence. “In the morn you shall hear a signal—the calling of a horn. Then will you take the marked path leading from this tent, and you will go down to where your lords await you—”

“But—” Solfinna protested, “there will have been no marriage, no giving by cup and flame.”

He smiled at her as if that shaping of the lips came, for him, with vast effort.

“You pass from those who deal by Cup and Flame, my lady. Marriage awaits you true enough, but by other rites. However, they will be as binding. I bid you,” he paused and looked at each in turn, coming at last to me, though his gaze did not linger, “good fortune.” His hand moved in the green light of the table lamps. He was holding a cup. “As he who stands for all of you as father-kin, do I drink long years, fair life, and easy passing, kin-favour, roof-fortune, child-holding. Thus be it ever!”

So did the Lord Imgry perform for the twelve and one he had brought hither the father-kin farewell. And then , he was swiftly gone before any found tongue.

“So be it.” I stood up and in that moment of bewilderment their eyes all swung to me. “I do not think we shall see my lord again.”

“But to go alone—down to strangers—” one of them made protest.

“Alone?” I asked. Swiftly Kildas came in, as might a shield companion in a sharp skirmish.

“We are twelve and one, not one alone. Look you, girl—this may be a festive hall, yet I think we have been made good welcome here.” She drew to her a lustrous length of black fur, with small diamond sparkles touching the hair tips in the light.

I had half expected trouble after the going of Imgry.

But, while there was little talk among them as they prepared for the waiting couches, also there was more a sense of expectancy and content. Almost as if each in truth did wait for a wedding she might have hoped for in the usual passing of time. They were quiet as if their thoughts were turned inward, and, now and again, one had a shadow of smile about her lips. As I drew the silver fur about my shoulders I wondered a little.

But I slept that night deeply dreamless, and knew no waking until the morning sun lay from the tent’s entrance as a thin spear. “Gillan!”

Kildas stood there. She had looped aside the flap to look out, and now she glanced at me, plainly disturbed. “What make you of this?”

I crawled from my warm nest of furs and joined her. The horses we had ridden the night before were gone from the picket line our escort had set up. The other tent still stood, its flap looped up to show it empty. To all appearances the camp was deserted, save for the brides. “It would seem they feared some last minute changes of mind.” I commented.

She smiled. “I think they need not have harboured such doubts. Is that not true, Gillan?”

With her asking I knew it was true. On this morn, had all the powers that ruled High Hallack stood ranged before me and offered me the greatest desire of my heart’s wishing—still would I have chosen to go down the Throat to the north, rather than return to the world I knew.

“At least they were thoughtful enough to leave our bridal fairings, and did not condemn us to make a poor showing over-mountain.” She pointed to packs set out in an orderly fashion. “I do not know how long we have before our lords summon us to a bridal, but I think it might be well for us to waste no time. Rouse you!” She raised her voice to summon the others already beginning to stir and murmur on their beds. “Greet the Unicorn and what it has to offer us.”

In the deserted tent we found bowls of a substance like unto polished horn and with them ewers of water, still warm and scented with herbs. We washed and then shared out equally the contents of the packs, so that shabbiness was forgotten and each adorned as fairly as might be. Nor did this oneness on property seem strange, though some had come poorly provided for and others, such as Kildas, with the robes due a bride of a noble house.

We ate, too, with good appetite, of what was left from the night before. And it seemed we had timed matters very well. For, as we put down our cups from a toast Kildas had proposed to fortune, there was a sound from beyond our small world in the pass. A horn—such as a hunter might wind—no, rather as the fanfare of one greeting a friendly keep.

“Shall we go?”

“There is no need to linger.” Kildas put aside her cup. “Let us see what the fortune we have drunk to has in store for us.”

We went out into a curling mist, which cloaked that lying below, but not the path ahead as we walked. And the road was neither steep nor difficult. Behind us followed the rest, holding their skirts from sweeping the earth, their bride veils modestly caught across their faces. None faltered, nor hung back, and there was no trace of hesitation or fear as we went silently.

The horn sounded thrice, when we first obeyed its summons, again when we left the pass behind hidden in the mist, and then a third time. On that the mist before us cleared as if drawn aside by a giant hand. We came into a place which was not winter but spring. The soft turf was short and smooth and of a bright and even green colour. A wall of bushes made an arc beyond, and on these small flowers hung as white and golden bells, while from them came the scent of bridal wreaths.

Yet no men stood in our sight, but rather was there a strange display. Lying hither and thither, as if tossed aside in sport, were cloaks. And these were wrought of such fine stuff, so bedecked with beautiful embroidery, with glints of small gems in their designs, that they were richer than any I believe any of us had seen in our lifetimes. Also, each varied from his fellow—until one could not believe so many patterns could exist.

We stood and stared. But, as I looked longer at what lay before me there I was twice mazed, for it seemed that I saw two pictures, one fitted above the other. If I fastened my will on any part of that green cup, the flowering bushes, or even the cloaks, then did one of those pictures fade, and I saw something else, very different which lay below.

No green turf, but winter brown earth and ash-hued grass such as had covered the plain across which we had ridden yesterday; and no sweetly flowering bushes, but bare and spiky limbs of brush, lacking either leaf or blossom. While the cloaks—the beauty of the stitchery and gem was a shimmer above darker colour, where there were still designs, but these oddly like lines of runes for what I could summon no meaning, and all were alike in that they had the ashen hue of the earth on which they lay.

The longer I looked and willed, so more did the enchantment fade and dim. Glancing to left and right at the rest of my companions I saw that with them this was not so, that they saw only the surface and not that which lay beneath it. And their faces were rapt, bemused, those of mortals caught in a web of glamourie. They looked so happy that I knew no warning of mine could break that spell, nor did I wish to.

They left me, first Kildas and Solfinna, and then all the rest, passing by me swiftly into that enchanted dell. And each was drawn by herself alone, to one of the cloaks which lay beckoning with that semblance of what it was not.

Kildas stooped and gathered up to her breast one of blue, brilliantly rich, with a fabulous beast wrought upon it in small gems—for the double sight came and went for me and it seemed as if I could see now and then through those ensorcelled eyes as well. Holding it to her as a treasure beyond all reckoning, she moved forward as one who saw perfectly her goal and longed only to reach it. She came to the bushes, passed through a space there and was gone, for beyond still held the mist curtain.

Solfinna made her choice and was gone. Aldeeth and all the rest followed. Then with a start I realized I alone remained. My double sight was a thing to fear, and to hesitate now might be a risk of peril. But when I looked at the remaining cloaks, for there was more than one, their beauty was vanished and they were all alike. Still not entirely so, I decided when I studied them more closely—for their bands of rune writing differed in number and width.

There was one cloak lying well away from the rest, almost to the hedge which set the boundary of the dell. The runes did not run on it as an uninterrupted edging, but rather were broken apart. For a moment I strove to see it enchanted—green—or blue—or something of them both—and on it a winged form wrought in crystals. But that glimpse was gone so quickly that I could not have sworn to it a moment later. I was drawn to it—at least it drew my eyes more than did the others. And I must make a choice at once, lest I be suspect—though why I thought that I could not tell.

So I crossed dead and frozen ground, and I picked up the cloak, holding it before me as I went on, through bare bushes and the chill of the mist, leaving yet perhaps a half score of cloaks still lying there, their spells fled, their colour vanished.

I heard voices in the mist, carefree laughter, joyful sounds. But I saw no one and when I tried to follow any of the sounds, I could not be sure of my direction. In the filmy entrapment my uneasiness grew and all the dark of dread rumour whispered in memory. The cloak between my hands was heavy, lined with the white-grey fur which was harsh to my skin. Also I was chilled, and my borrowed finery dew-wet, little protection against the mist.

A darkness within that cloud, a figure coming towards me. In that moment it was as if I were being stalked, cunningly and with no hope of escape.

Shape changers, that was the cry in one’s ears when the Were Riders were named. Man—or beast—or both? What did I face now—a darkish shadow—but it walked on two feet as a man. Did a beast’s head rest upon its shoulders? Whatever my companions had met with in that disguising fog, they had not feared, or voices would not continue to rise with so happy a ring, even though the words they spoke I could not distinguish.

I halted, holding still the cloak which grew ever heavier in my hands, dragging them down with its weight. Man, yes, the outline of the head was human, not that of a shaggy beast. And still I had clear sight, for the grey-brown cloak I held proved that.

A last whip of the fog between us was sundered and I looked upon this stranger from another breed who had come a-hunting me. He was tall, though not of the inches of a hill warrior, and slim as any untried boy on his first foraging would be slim. Smooth of face as a boy, also. Yet the green eyes beneath slanting brows were not a boy’s eyes, but weary and old, still ageless also.

Those brows slanting upward, made the eyes in turn appear angle-set in a face with a sharply pointed chin, and were matched in outline by his thick black hair which peaked on his forehead. He was neither handsome nor unhandsome by human standard, merely very different.

Though his head was bare of war-helm he wore a byrnie of chain-link, supple by his easy movements within its casing. This reached to midthigh and beneath it breeches, close fitting, of furred hide, a silvery fur shorter in the hair than the pelt which had taken my fancy at the tent though still of the same nature. His feet were booted, but also in furred leather, their colour being a shade or two the darker than his breeks. About his slender waist was a belt of some soft material, fastened by a large clasp in which were set odd milky gems.

Thus did I face for the first time Herrel of the Were Riders, whose cast cloak I had gathered to me, though not through the same weave spell as intended.

“My-my lord?” I used the address courteous, since he did not seem disposed to break the silence between us.

He smiled, almost wryly.

“My lady.” he returned and there was a kind of mockery in his voice, but I did not feel it was turned upon me. “It would seem that I have woven better than was deemed possible, since that is my cloak you bring.” He reached out and took it from me. “I am Herrel,” he named himself as he shook out the folds of cloth and fur.

“I am Gillan.” I made answer, and then was at a loss as to what was expected of me. For my planning had not reached, even in fancy, beyond this point.

“Welcome, Gillan—”

Herrel swung out the cloak and brought it smoothly about my shoulders so that it covered me, from throat almost to the ground now lost in the mist.

“Thus do I claim you, Gillan—it being your wish?”

There was no mistaking the question in those last words. If this be some form of ceremony, then he was leaving me a chance of withdrawal. But I was committed now to this course.

“It is my wish, Herrel.”

He stood very still as if awaiting something more, I knew not what. And then he leaned a little towards me and asked, more sharply than he had yet spoken:

“What lies about your shoulders, Gillan?”

“A cloak of grey and brown and fur—”

It was as if he caught his breath in a swift gasp.

“And in me what do you see, Gillan?”

“A man young and still not young, wearing chain mail and furred clothing, with a belt about him buckled with silver and milk white stones, with black hair on his head—”

My words dropped one by one into a pool of quiet which was ominous. His hand came out and took from my head the bride’s veil, so swiftly and with such a jerk that it dislodged the pinning of my braids, so they loosened and fell upon my back and shoulders over the cloak he had set about me as a seal.

“Who are you?” His demand came with some of the same heat as Lord Imgry had shown at our night meeting.

“I am Gillan, beyond that I do not know.” The truth I gave him because even then I knew that the truth was his right. “A war captive from overseas, fostered among the Dales of High Hallack, and come here by my own will.”

He had dropped the veil into the mist, now his fingers moved in the air between us, sketching, I believe, some sign. There was a faint trail of light left by their moving so. But the smile was gone from his mouth and now he wore a battle-ready face.

“Cloak-bound we are—and there is no chance in that, only destiny. But this I ask of you, Gillan, if the double sight is yours—see with the outer eyes only for this while—there is danger in any other path.”

I did not know how to regain the less from the greater, but I tried fumblingly to see green grass under my feet, colour about me. And there was a period of one wavering upon the other, then I stood with rippling splendour about me, green-blue hung with crystal droplets. And Herrel wore a different face more akin to that of human-kind and strongly handsome—yet I found it in me to like his other guise the better.

He took my hand without more words and we walked from the never-never land of the mist into more green and flowering trees. There I found my companions, each companied with a man like unto Herrel, and they were seated on the grass, drinking and eating, each couple from a common plate, even as was the custom at bride feasts in the Dales.

To one side there were more men, and these were without companions, nor did the feasters appear to note them. As Herrel drew me onward we passed close to these apart and almost as one they turned to stare at us. One started forward with a muffled exclamation, and it was not a pleasantry I knew. Two of the others shouldered him back into their midst. Nor did they do aught more as we passed and Herrel brought me to a small nook between two sweet flowered bushes and then vanished, to speedily return with food and drink, set out in crystal and gold, or that which had such seeming. “Laugh,” he told me in a low voice, “put on the happiness of a bride, there are those who watch, and there is that which must be said between us which other ears—or minds—or thoughts—must not share. “

I broke a cake and held a portion to my lips. From somewhere I summoned a smile and then laughter. But in me there was a sentry now alert.